


FUNdamentals

by rose_griffes



Series: 5 times Gaby and Illya surprised each other - and one time Solo surprised them both [2]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Cooking, F/M, Gen, Mutual Pining, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 02:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18002276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_griffes/pseuds/rose_griffes
Summary: A continuation from a prompt: Gaby or Illya surprising each other.





	FUNdamentals

**Author's Note:**

> For our December fanfic exchange, I started with the idea for a five times fic: five times Gaby and Illya surprised each other. I was the one to get surprised, however, when the first section (gardener Gaby) ended up at close to 4000 words, leaving no time to write any other sections. So now it's going to be a short series.

She didn’t mean to stop walking, but her brain is still processing what she’s seeing: Illya, standing at the kitchen counter, wearing an apron Solo recently acquired, his hands covered in flour as he carefully forms dough into a ball. 

Gaby blinks. He’s still doing it, methodically folding the flour into the lump already in his hands. It’s both hypnotic and very strange. 

“What are you doing?” Maybe this is part of the new cover, like the beard he’s been growing for the past several days. 

“Making dough,” Illya answers. 

“Well, yes.” She had already guessed that. Gaby steps over to the counter to watch more closely. “It looks difficult,” she tells him. 

He tsks. “It is easy,” he tells her. 

Gaby makes a small noise of disagreement. She’s tried several times to make dough, _any_ kind of dough, and always failed. 

“Is this for the next mission?”

His eyebrows go up. “No,” he says. “Cowboy is not the only one who can make food.” Illya slaps the dough, as if for emphasis. 

_Ah_ , Gaby thinks. This is part of Illya and Solo’s ongoing rivalry, where Illya is easily egged on by Napoleon, who then pretends to be above such shenanigans, while actually enjoying the one-upmanship more than Illya does. 

They’ve all taken turns cooking at times, for their irregular shared meals, but Solo is easily the best chef of the three of them. He had made a rather spectacular meal last week, in Sydney. Apparently, Illya is set on making an impression of his own.

He looks so calm, kneading the dough with his palms, fingers curling and uncurling in repetitive motions. A flash of what else he could be doing with those hands crosses her mind, which Gaby quickly squelches. 

She doesn’t ask how he learned to make dough. The answer has the possibility of either making him sad or her angry. Gaby leans against the counter and continues to watch. Illya finally stops working the dough and covers it with a clean kitchen towel. Then he starts peeling apples. 

Gaby gives in to her curiosity. “So what exactly are you making?”

“Vareniki. Like dumplings, but with apple in place of meat.”

She hums in acknowledgment, still leaning against the counter. After finishing with the peeler, Illya makes steady swoops with a knife, creating a pile of small, evenly sized cubes of apple. 

Glancing at her, he says, “You want to help?”

Not particularly, Gaby thinks. She’d been enjoying the show. “What is there to do?”

“Take a little bit of dough, put apples and a bit of sugar, and seal it.” He slides over a bowl of sugar mixed with spices so that it’s within easy reach for both of them. “Like this,” he says, and demonstrates. The finished product does look like a dumpling; he dips his index finger in a small bowl of water and seals the folded edge, then sets the dumpling on a plate. After that Illya pinches off another piece of dough to start making the next one. 

Gaby should be reading her files, or practicing with Solo’s lockpick set. Instead, she stays in the kitchen and helps Illya make dumplings. When the dough is about half-used in dumpling form he puts a pot of water on to boil. 

The plate of dumplings fills up as they work and they start a line along the edge of the countertop, next to the stove. “You do good,” Illya tells her, his accent more pronounced than usual. He smiles at her, a soft expression in his eyes. It makes her think of who he might have been once: little Illya, learning how to make this from the mother that he mentions only when his guard is down. 

He’d done the more difficult part of the work himself, but Gaby doesn’t scoff at his compliment as she might normally do. She looks down at their hands and at the dumplings, away from the open expression on his face. 

Steam fills the kitchen before they’re done; Illya carefully slides a first batch of the _vareniki_ into the boiling water. After five minutes or so, when all of the dumplings are floating, he removes them with a slotted spoon. Gaby finishes folding the last apple cubes into the dough and watches him work. 

“We are not going to cook all of them today,” he tells her, as she looks at the large pile of _vareniki_ that they had already cooked. “You can freeze them and cook later.” 

“Tell me what to do, then,” Gaby says. 

Solo breezes in as she finishes wrapping the remaining uncooked dumplings to place in the freezer, and Illya spoons out the last of the cooked ones. “What’s this?” Solo asks, eyebrows raised comically high. 

“Russian specialty,” Illya tells him, rolling his R's more than usual. “Dessert. Is almost ready.” He’s still standing at the stove, cutting butter into chunks and dropping them into a saucepan. 

“Really.” Solo looks like he’s ready to say something asinine, so Gaby glares and does a quick shake of her head. 

Solo gives her a look of wounded innocence; she glares again, and they finish up their brief visual conversation behind Illya’s back. Chastened, Solo changes tactics. “What can I do to help?” he asks.

“Get sour cream from refrigerator,” is Illya’s distracted answer. He’s carefully swirling the dumplings in the melted butter, a few at a time. 

After Illya pronounces them done, they crowd around the small dining room table to eat. Illya directs them to dip the _vareniki_ into the sour cream. Solo takes a bite of one and pronounces it delicious. He glances at Gaby after saying it; she nods in approval at the sincere tone of his voice. 

She thinks about those years of hunger after the war as she picks up her first dumpling. Even now, the people she left behind that wall would struggle to have food like this. 

Pushing those thoughts aside, Gaby puts a small spoonful of sour cream on the corner of the dumpling and takes a bite. It _is_ delicious, as Solo said. The sweetness of it is tempered by the sour cream, and the spices, apple, and sugar blend well together.

She closes her eyes as she finishes chewing, savoring the flavors. When she opens them again, she catches Illya watching her. Rather than looking away, he lets a tiny smile curl his mouth upward. 

“I like it,” she tells him. “Your recipe is good.” His smile grows and then he does look away. 

They all eat another in warm silence: a moment to savor before operations start tomorrow.

“That apron doesn’t work well with your proportions,” Solo tells Illya, and the moment is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I have outlines for most of the remaining sections, but feel free to throw ideas at me, if you're so inspired. Next is Gaby's turn to surprise Illya again.


End file.
